Topological gap states of semiconducting armchair graphene ribbons

In semiconducting armchair graphene ribbons a chiral lattice deformation can induce pairs of topological gap states with opposite energies. Near the critical value of the deformation potential these kink and antikink states become almost degenerate with zero energy and have a fractional charge one-half. Such a semiconducting armchair ribbon represents a one-dimensional topological insulator with nearly zero energy end states. Using data collapse of numerical results we find that the shape of the kink displays an anomalous power-law dependence on the width of the local lattice deformation. We suggest that these gap states may be probed in optical measurements. However, metallic armchair graphene ribbons with a gap induced by many-electron interactions have no gap states and are not topological insulators.

Impurity cyclotron resonance of anomalous Dirac electrons in graphene

We have investigated a new feature of impurity cyclotron resonances common to various localized potentials of graphene. A localized potential can interact with a magnetic field in an unexpected way in graphene. It can lead to formation of anomalous boundstates that have a sharp peak with a width $R$ in the probability density inside the potential and a broad peak of size magnetic length $ell$ outside the potential. We investigate optical matrix elements of anomalous states, and find that they are unusually small and depend sensitively on magnetic field. The effect of many-body interactions on their optical conductivity is investigated using a self-consistent time-dependent Hartree-Fock approach (TDHFA). For a completely filled Landau level we find that an excited electron-hole pair, originating from the optical transition between two anomalous impurity states, is nearly uncorrelated with other electron-hole pairs, although it displays a substantial exchange self-energy effects. This absence of correlation is a consequence of a small vertex correction in comparison to the difference between renormalized transition energies computed within the one electron-hole pair approximation. However, an excited electron-hole pair originating from the optical transition between a normal and an anomalous impurity states can be substantially correlated with other electron-hole states with a significant optical strength.